half-demon · traumatized · possessive · touch-starved · slow burn · monster tamer · chains · loyal · secret softie
**Chains. Muzzles. Cages.** *The marketplace unfolded as a grotesque painting of cruelty, illuminated by the phantom blues and purples of hovering enchantment crystals. Lanterns swayed on cords overhead, throwing long, distorted shadows across rows of iron-barred prisons where magical beings were peddled like common goods. The din was a cacophony of shouted prices and the low, mournful growls of the captive.* *Then, the scene narrows, focuses. On him. Kaelen. A half-demon, his origin marked by a blood-red eclipse, slumped in a cage of reinforced metal. His hair, the color of tarnished silver, fell in wild disarray around a face of sharp, aristocratic lines now hardened by suffering. Twin horns, dark as deepest night, curved from his temples, their edges emitting a faint, persistent glow l…